Signal Support to Army Cyberspace Operations, Part II

The new Army command responsible for cyberspace operations, US Army Forces Cyber Command, or ARFORCYBER, will be formally activated in October of this year. It will be the Army's piece of the larger Department of Defense command, US Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), activated just last month under the command of General Keith Alexander. In doctrinal terms, ARFORCYBER will serve as the Army Service component command to USCYBERCOM.

Coincident with the activation of this new Army command, the Army is revising it's capstone doctrinal manual, FM 3-0 Operations, published by the Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth. Together, these two events have the potential of making a dramatic impact upon the US Army Signal Corps.

Let's take the second one first, the revision of FM 3-0. FM 3-0 is being revised, it must be remembered, to coincide with the formal establishment of of a new Mission Command Center of Excellence at Fort Leavenworth. This new center of excellence will develop the concept and organizational design for Mission Command and is expected to coordinate doctrine (FM 3-0 will describe mission command as a new war fighting function), training, and materiel development for stability operations, security force assistance, and counterinsurgency.

According to the text released last month for review and feedback, the revised FM, in order to establish and strengthen the newly designated war fighting function of mission command, will outline a new coordinating staff section that will be responsible for "cyber/electromagnetic" tasks and capabilities, to include information assurance and computer network defense--core competencies of the Signal Regiment, and responsibilities that currently reside within the G-6 staff section.

The emerging FM 3-0 does further damage to the G-6 by aligning combat camera (a component of visual information operations, another Signal Regiment core competency) with "inform and influence activities. Together, in the new FM, inform and influence activities plus psychological operations (PSYOPS) form the two distinct parts of Army information operations (IO). These tasks, too, will fall to the new staff section envisioned by the revision.

Moreover, the cyber/EM tasks, for which this new staff creation will be responsible, include electromagnetic spectrum management operations (EMSO), yet another core competency of the Signal Regiment.

It remains unclear what the Intellectual Center of the Army plans to call this new coordinating staff section. We suggest G-6(a) or G-6 1/2, perhaps; and the "legacy" G-6 section might now be referred to as G-6(-).

Now, as to the potential effects that ARFORCYBER may have upon the Signal Regiment, it should be understood, right up front, that one of the central purposes of these new commands--USCYBERCOM at the joint level, and ARFORCYBER at the Army level--is to bring the military's offensive and defensive cyber capabilities together under the same commander. It is not about developing any new capabilities. It's about gaining more operational effectiveness through a more efficient organization of resources.

A large part of that foreseen effectiveness, however, has to do with cyber security. Keep in mind that USCYBERCOM's commander is also the director of the National Security Agency. A significant component of cyber, or network, security is computer network defense. Who does computer network defense for the Army? Right, the Signal Regiment.

Who will do computer network defense for ARFORCYBER?

That, according to the execution order directing ARFORCYBER's initial operating capability, is a decision yet to be made.